Clay Plate Measuring Tips

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Part of the video series: Making a Clay Plate Set

Summary: Clay plates have a tendency to warp so compression is important when creating its size. Learn tips on how to make each clay plate the same size in this free video clip from a pottery expert.

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By Chris Cook
eHow Presenter

Chris Cook received a BFA in ceramics and sculpture from Southern Oregon University where he studied raku, studio ceramics, stoneware, and various firing techniques under Jim Romberg....read more

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Video Transcript

"Now that we've got our clay centered here, I'm going to collect the slop on our hands and we're going to use that to start spreading this mass out to our desired place on the bat and we're going to use the bat, as a caliper. You don't even need to use calipers when you're making plate sets because you can just remember where you put it on there. It's nice to use calipers but it's not necessary, you just find out a place, on that bat, that you want to go to and with this amount of clay, I'm thinking maybe half way through. Go ahead and squish all slip, that onto your ball of clay and we're just going to start flattening this out and compressing. With plates, it is so important to compress because they have so much surface. They have a tendency of warping, cracking and just being a pain, that's why a lot of potters don't make plate sets, unless they are problematic, but if you make sure that these problems don't come when the clay is still green and it's still on your wheel head, you can avoid those problems all together."